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(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus,¹ Soclarus,² Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon.³)

AUTOBULUS.

. When Leonidas was asked what sort of a person he considered Tyrtaeus to be, he replied, A good poet to whet the souls of young men,⁴ on the ground that by means of verses the poet inspired in young men keenness, accompanied by ardour and ambition whereby they sacrificed themselves freely in battle. And I am very much afraid, my friends, that the Praise of Hunting⁵ which was read aloud to us yesterday may so immoderately inflame our young men who like the sport that they will come to consider all other occupations as of minor, or of no, importance and concentrate on this.⁶ As a matter of fact, I myself caught the old fever all over again in spite of my years and longed, like Euripides’⁷ Phaedra,

To halloo the hounds and chase the dappled deer;

so moved was I by the discourse as it brought its solid and convincing arguments to bear.

SOCLARUS.

. Exactly so, Autobulus. That reader yesterday seems to have roused his rhetoric from its long disuse⁸ to gratify the young men and share their vernal mood.⁹ I was particularly pleased with his introduction of gladiators and his argument that it is as good a reason as any to applaud hunting that after diverting to itself most of our natural or acquired pleasure in armed combats between human beings it affords an innocent spectacle of skill and intelligent courage pitted against witless force and violence. It agrees with that passage of Euripides¹⁰:

Slight is the strength of men;

But through his mind’s resource

He subdues the dread

Tribes of the deep and races

Bred on earth and in the air.

De sollertia animalium. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold, and Helmbold, William C., translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πότερα τῶν ζῴων φρονιμώτερα τὰ χερσαῖα ἢ τὰ ἔνυδρα Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. VI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1895.) — 1 focus

[1] 959a 959b

ΑΥΤΟΒΟΥΛΟΣ.

τὸν Τυρταῖον ὁ Λεωνίδας ἐρωτηθεὶς ποῖόν τινα νομίζοι, ἀγαθόν ποιητήν 5 ἔφη νέων ψυχὰς κακκονῆν ὡς τοῖς νέοις διὰ τῶν ἐπῶν ὁρμὴν ἐμποιοῦντα μετὰ θυμοῦ καὶ φιλοτιμίας, ἐν ταῖς μάχαις ἀφειδοῦσιν αὑτῶν. δέδια δή, ὦ φίλοι, μὴ καὶ τὸ τῆς κυνηγεσίας; ἐγκώμιον ἐχθὲς ἀνεγνωσμένον ἐπάρῃ τοῦ μετρίου πέρα τοὺς 10 φιλοθήρους ἡμῖν νεανίσκους, ὥστε τἄλλα πάρεργα καὶ τὸ μηδὲν ἡγεῖσθαι, πρὸς τοῦτο παντάπασι ῥυέντας· ὅπου δοκῶ μοι καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκ νέας αὖθις ἀρχῆς παρʼ ἡλικίαν ἐμπαθέστερος γεγονέναι καὶ ποθεῖν, ὥσπερ ἡ Εὐριπίδου Φαίδρα, κυσὶ θωΰξαι 15 959c βαλιαῖς ἐλάφοις ἐγχριμπτόμενος· οὕτως ἔθιγέ μου πυκνὰ καὶ πιθανὰ τῶν ἐπιχειρημάτων ἐπάγων ὁ λόγος.

ΣΩΚΛΑΡΟΣ.

ἀληθῆ λέγεις, ὦ Αὐτόβουλε· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνος ἔδοξέ μοι τὸ ῥητορικὸν ἐγεῖραι διὰ χρόνου, χαριζόμενος καὶ συνεαρίζων τοῖς μειρακίοις· μάλιστα δ’ ἣσθην τοὺς μονομάχους αὐτοῦ παραθέντος, 5 ὡς οὐχ ἥκιστα τὴν θηρευτικὴν ἄξιον ἐπαινεῖν, ὅτι τοῦ πεφυκότος ἐν ἡμῖν ἢ μεμαθηκότος χαίρειν μάχαις ἀνδρῶν πρὸς ἀλλήλους διὰ σιδήρου τὸ πολὺ δεῦρο τρέψασα καθαρὰν παρέχει θέαν, ἅμα 959d τέχνης καὶ τόλμης νοῦν ἐχούσης πρὸς ἀνόητον ἰσχὺν 10 καὶ βίαν ἀντιταττομένης καὶ ἐπαινούσης τὸ Εὐριπίδειον

ἦ βραχύ τοι σθένος ἀνέρος. ἀλλὰ

ποικιλίᾳ πραπίδων

δεινὰ μὲν φῦλα πόντου 15

χθονίων τʼ ἀερίων τε

δάμναται βουλεύματα.ʼ

Translations (1)

Which are the most crafty, water-animals or those creatures that breed upon the land? Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874.) — 1 focus

Autobulus, Soclarus, Optatus, Phaedimus, Aristotimus, Heracleo.

AUTOBULUS.

Leonidas, being asked the question what he thought of Tyrtaeus, made answer, that he was a good poet to whet minds of young men; as a person who, by the vigor and spirit of his poetical raptures, kindled that wrathful indignation and ambition of honor, which emboldened them in combat to the contempt of death and danger. Which makes me afraid, my dearest friends, lest the encomium of hunting yesterday recited may have inflamed our young gentlemen beyond the bounds of moderation, so as to deem all other things fruitless and of little worth, while they rendezvous from all parts to this exercise. So much the rather, because I myself, when I was but very young, even beyond the strength of my age, seemed to be more than became me addicted to this sport, and to be over desirous with Phaedra in Euripides,

With hounds and horn and merry hollow,

The spotted hart and hind to follow.

So did that discourse affect me, fortified with many and probable arguments.

SOCLARUS.

You say very truly, Autobulus. For that same poet seems to me to have awakened the force of rhetoric, for a long time lulled asleep, to gratify the inclinations of the youthful gentry, and to make himself their spring companion. But I am most pleased with him for introducing the example of single combatants, from whence he takes occasion to praise the sport of hunting, as being that which for the most part draws to itself whatever is natural in us, or what we have by use acquired, of that delight which men take in fighting with single weapons one against another, thus affording an evident prospect of artifice and daring courage, endued with understanding, encountering brutish force and strength, and applauding that of Euripides:

Small is the nerveless strength of feeble man,

Yet through the cunning of his reaching brain,

By various slights and sundry stratagems,

Whatever land or th’ Ocean breeds he tames.

Notes on the current edition

Whether land or sea animals are cleverer

1. Plutarch’s father; on controversial points connected with this identification see Ziegler in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Plutarchos, 642 ff.

2. A friend of the household who appears in several of the Symposiacs and in the Amatorius also; he is not improbably the L. Mestrius Soclarus of Inscr. Gr. ix. 1. 61.

3. A speaker also in De Defectu Oraculorum ( cf. Mor. 412 e). Of the other speakers in this dialogue, nothing definite is known except what may be inferred from the present work.

4. cf. Mor 235 f, where it is an anonymous saying; but the Life of Cleomenes, ii (xxiii = 805 d) also attributes it to Leonidas.

5. The authorship of this work has been endlessly disputed, but present opinion ( pace Sinko, Eos, xv. pp. 113 ff. and Hubert, Woch. f. klass. Phil. xxviii, pp. 371 ff.) holds that it is Plutarch himself who wrote it (Schuster, op. cit. pp. 8 ff.). Bernardakis (vii, pp. 142-143) included this passage (959 b-d) as a fragment of the lost work.

6. There canot be two passions more nearly resembling each other than hunting and philosophy (Huxley, Hume, p. 139), and see Shorey’s note on Plato, Republic, 432 b (L.C.L.); cf., however, Rep. 535 d, 549 a. See also Isocrates, Areopagiticus, 43 f.; Xenophon, Cynegetica, i. 18; xii. 1. ff.; Cyr. viii. 1. 34-36; Pollux, preface to book v; the proems of Grattius, Nemesianus, Arrian, etc.

7. Cf. Hippolytus, 218 f. It follows from the fuller quotation in Mor. 52 c that Plutarch’s text of Euripides inverted the order of these lines as given in our mss. of the tragedian.

8. Presumably an autobiographical detail.

9. The word is found only here, but may well be right if Plutarch is in a poetical, as well as a playful, humour.

10. Frag. 27 from the Aeolus (so Stobaeus); Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 370 f.; cf. Mor. 98 e. The text is somewhat confused.

Plutarch De sollertia animalium 1

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus,¹ Soclarus,² Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon.³)

AUTOBULUS.

SOCLARUS.

Current edition Perseus

ΑΥΤΟΒΟΥΛΟΣ.

ΣΩΚΛΑΡΟΣ.

Autobulus, Soclarus, Optatus, Phaedimus, Aristotimus, Heracleo.

AUTOBULUS.

SOCLARUS.

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus, 1 Soclarus, 2 Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon. 3 )

AUTOBULUS.

SOCLARUS.

Current edition Perseus

ΑΥΤΟΒΟΥΛΟΣ.

ΣΩΚΛΑΡΟΣ.

Autobulus, Soclarus, Optatus, Phaedimus, Aristotimus, Heracleo.

AUTOBULUS.

SOCLARUS.

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers

(The speakers in the dialogue are Autobulus,¹ Soclarus,² Optatus, Aristotimus, Phaedimus, and Heracleon.³)